Mountaintop mining legacy: Destroying Appalachian streams

Scientists are now beginning to understand that mountaintop mining operations’ most lasting damage may be caused by the massive amounts of debris dumped into valley streams

…Of all the environmental problems caused by mountaintop projects

The remaining length of Laurel Branch, running past the house into the river, has become a sluice for contamination: As rainwater runs down Hobet 21’s dismantled mountainsides and fills, it picks up minerals and pollutants that damage delicate stream chemistry for miles downstream. Laurel Branch and multiple valley fills like it feed the Mud River, which is heavily contaminated with selenium, a heavy metal that works its way up through the food chain in ever-greater concentrations. One study has associated it with deformities